The Ultimate Destination of Banner Ads 117
The SatireWire article concerning banner ads was a ray of sunshine in my day, in light of recent events.
Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin
Alt attribute for banner ads (Score:2)
Looks like (Score:2)
Something is up at /. ...... (Score:2)
Perhaps they are decideing to remove all ads from Slashdot since we know they read our comments and see how much we love ads. yeah.... thats got to be it....
as read with junkbuster enabled (Score:1)
Copyright 2001, SatireWire
not that bad (Score:1)
What about Slashdot? (Score:1)
Could it ever be enough to support this gigantic web-site and all of it's employees? Or is Slashdot really painting themselves into a corner by bashing ads, and making it harder for them to get more revenue streams in the future?
Wait, I Got One! (Score:1)
Re:Seriously, though... (Score:2)
What's the point?? (Score:1)
I really don't see what the point [pointlessgames.com] of this post is about. It doesn't figure into what's really happening to the massive "mog" [massmog.com] of sites out there. It seems that nearly everything [nearlyeverything.com] that's being pimped is more of a bit of soothing rain [soothingrain.com] in a world of miserable over-commercialization!
*sigh*.. (at least all mine are little sites that aren't just doing this to make a /.'ed buck... well, not really anyway...)
----
PointlessGames.com -- Go waste some time.
MassMOG.com -- Visit the site; Use the word.
Re:Looks like (Score:1)
I am happy.
I do hate banner ads stuck in the middle of articles. At the top and the bottom is acceptable, on the side is marginal. In the middle of the article, though, is unacceptable.
Re:A little test. (Score:2)
The filter is back on now.
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Re:Couln't read the article... (Score:1)
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I disagree (Score:3)
I totally disagree with that. Why?
OK, go to your favorite search engine, or shareware search engine. Pick a game style, say.... puzzle games. Now then, how many hits do you get back? As a consumer, how long will you spend looking? While it's cheesy (and I DON'T do this) quite a few people just keep re-submitting thier game so that in a dated list, it shows up first. Or they do things like put '++' at the beginning of the name to try and make it show up first (that was the case back in the BBS days, but, no longer really works that well.) So, if you are looking for a game, how long do you expect to spend clicking 'next' to find a game that you like? Not very damned long on the Internet anymore.
The problem isn't just getting your name out there - I don't do any 'brand recognition' advertising. It's trying to compete with the miriad of other programs of the same genre to capture the prospective customer's attention. I advertise in places where people look for games (two game search engines, a game fansite, and a game news portal.) So, the idea that someone just pops into a game search engine and finds something interesting is a bit of a problem - have you done that lately? This helps those who really want to push thier product stand out just a little. That's why I advertise instead of just putting it in the search engines and shareware game engines. Other people's reasons may vary. And if you don't like ads - well, I'm sure you know the address for Junkbuster! ;-)
Re:Even better.. (Score:1)
No News is Good News? (Score:2)
Joseph Elwell.
Re:This is what banners are meant to be --- (Score:1)
What article? (Score:1)
Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:1)
I don't Get it (Score:1)
I'm browsing with Lynx this morning.
What banners?
Won't be awake until I down another half litre of coffee.
Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:1)
I know this is a bit off-topic from the original discussion, and I hope the moderators aren't too vicious with me, but...it would be really nice to have stories that are rejected given a reason why. Nothing fancy. In this case just "Already run" or something.
Re:Shudder (Score:1)
But, and this is a big but, what would happen when the proffesional AD guys saw this method was an effective way to do buisiness?
You're the idiot here (Score:1)
Ommmmmm....
Re:Site design (Score:1)
But seriously folks ... (Score:2)
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Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:2)
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Re:K5 (Score:1)
Re:Seriously, though... (Score:1)
mst3k (Score:1)
It's funny because it's true.
--
Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.-- Cool Hand Luke
Re:Why is *your* post on Slashdot? (Score:2)
Any post pointing out the irrelevancy of a post pointing out the irrelevancy of a post is itself even more irrelevant and will generate even more uninteresting traffic than the one that originally offended you did.
So, just don't read what you're not interested in.
Re:yuk yuk (Score:1)
Think about how many retards would just post goatse.cx [slashdot.org]/hello.jpg.
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Shudder (Score:4)
"www.seethroughgifts.com" isn't a real site? (Score:1)
--
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: Screw you, Dave!
Why do we get a bad name? (Score:4)
I really don't understand why advertisers like myself (MidnightRyder.Com [midnightryder.com]) get such a bad name. I mean, how else am I supposed to tell people about the games I produce [midnightryder.com] without advertising it somewhere? Heck, sometimes it's not even a matter of trying to sell a game [midnightryder.com], but, instead trying to generate site traffic [midnightryder.com]. So what is we throw money at websites that will link to us for a fee [midnightryder.com]?
OK, all kidding aside - while the SatireWire link did it to the extreme, there are some websites that are really starting to look like that, and I've seen a couple of news articles that looked much more like advertisements based on the way they were linked (see my sarcasam above.) Yeah, I pay for advertising - not much, mainly cause I can't afford it. But, you know, I don't think I *EVER* want to see my product stuck in the middle of an article on CNN.com or News.COm, etc., where it ends up smack-dab in the middle of an article - I figure if that starts being the case, people will start to associate my name and my games with BAD, ANNOYING THINGS! What I can't understand is - why don't other advertisers start seeing it this way? I understand the concept of 'brand recognition', but, if it starts to become negative, what the hell good is it doing?
Send them into the ether. (Score:1)
Where do banner ads go after they have been filtered? Digital Hell?
I prefer to filter them. Send them off into the ether. Sometimes I miss the flashing little buggers. But an hour on someone else machine rekindles my hate for them.
Now there is a new threat. Flash commercials, Aargh. It's going to be hard to filter just the flash movies and not the flash apps.
Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:2)
The page that you linked too was already featured in an older Slashdot article. [slashdot.org] Maybe that's why it was rejected when you submitted it.
Just discovered... (Score:1)
That's wierd... there should be a "" in there at the beginning, and "" at the end of the first paragraph. Apparently, /. hates fake HTML tags llike that....
Re:Seriously, though... (Score:2)
The banner company I dealt with for my site asked me to pull off all their banners because the people who're clicking through my site are not making purchases at the target sites.
Now I'm not supposed to only make a site that's good enough that people visit on a daily basis and want to click on banners featured in it, but they must buy something for me to be good enough!
Re:Site design (Score:1)
Hehhehe (Score:2)
Ok, it REALLY hates fake HTML tags, no matter HOW you put them... it should have been (SARCASAM) and (/SARCASAM), with the appropriate >'s in the right places!
Why is *your* post on Slashdot? (Score:4)
Any post pointing out the irrelevancy of a post is itself even more irrelevant and will generate even more uninteresting traffic than the one that originally offended you did.
So, just don't read what you're not interested in.
(*) Or is it rule 4? Nevermind.
A disadvantage of junkbuster! (Score:1)
If anyone doesn't know about junkbuster [junkbuster.com] it not only can filter out all the banner ads, but also the cookies you don't want.
What's the alternative to banners? (Score:2)
- Annoying
- Take time to load
- Distract from the content
But what's the alternative?
If you're a guy with a website that you want to see grow by having more bandwidth and disk space without having a corporate sponsor who's willing to pay for it, the only way is banner ads.
Are there any other alternatives to pay the expenses for maintaining a site today?
Correlation Found... (Score:2)
Researchers have detected a correlation between adding more banner ads to a news web site and subsequent incrases in traffic.
"I did a least-squares fit for traffic changes versus banner ad density changes over the last month, and even though the points I could see to be slowly going down with increased banner ads, the line had a distincly positive slope", said high school student William Peterson. "Clearly, adding banner ads to an existing news website increases traffic."
Advertisers welcomed this news. "We expect to see an increase in <strike>percent of web tracked</strike> banner ad sales this quarter", said Paul Brooks of DoubleClick, Inc.(www.doubleclick.com).
Some content providers who recieve most of their revenue through advertising other sites were less ecstatic, however.
"This incrase in traffic seems to be mostly due to the Slashdot effect, which is notorious for sending low-quality traffic to our sites," said Eliza Gregson of SatireWire (www.satirewire.com).
Slashdot (www.slashdot.org) is a fun and useful news-and-discussion site frequented by computer nerds. SatireWire is a "humor" site that usually isn't [satirewire.com] funny [satirewire.com].
Gregson continued, "Sure, those users are curious and click on ads, but they never buy anything because they think advertising is 'evil' and out to 'trick' them into buying products. Our advertisers use this spike of anti-corporatist users in calculating our CPM [revenue per thousand banner impressions], and so over the next few months we end up getting less banner ad revenue."
Popular slashdot community members "Signal 11" and "Bruce Perens" were not available for comment.
Re:Alt attribute for banner ads (Score:1)
Re:A little test. (Score:1)
Re:Even better.. (Score:2)
I've seen this bug from time to time using Netscape in linux. I had created a web page a few years ago that produced this effect, but I fixed it after a few people complained.
It's likely the Netscape, well know for shoddy 4.x browsers, is at fault and not BSD.
You misread Nielsen; here's what he really says (Score:1)
Funny (Score:1)
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Re:I wonder.. (Score:1)
Anyway, I thlaughed all thoughout this page. I thought it was great.
Opera, my saviour (Score:1)
1) Dont show multimedia content on this page
2) Override document CSS with your own.
Now if they can also put in a toolbar button for Javascript and popups, I'd be in heaven.
BTW - these settings are per page basis, not system wide so your other Opera windows are still singing and dancing. Navigator had this eons ago before coming under the influence of marketting people (otherwise, Netscape would have remained the no#1 browser in Win32 world).
So everyone, have a look at Opera if you still haven't. You know the saying - things are free when your time has no value.
Have fun.
Re:Hehhehe (Score:2)
Ok, it REALLY hates fake HTML tags [...]
Technical difficulties prevented me from posting this Friday evening; it's not like anyone will actually read it now, but...
I see others have already posted about how to escape special characters, but my take on the logic behind the "Plain Old Text" formatting option might still be of interest. Anyway:
<EXPLANATION>
You'll find it likes them better if you escape the '<' and '>' characters with "<" and ">" (and '&' is "&"), assuming you're using the "Plain Old Text" mode, which, except for inserting a <BR> for each newline and filtering for forbidden stuff, inserts the text that you type directly into the generated page. Thinking about it that way makes it clear (in my opinion) what to expect it to do, though a lot of people seem to feel that it is exactly backwards because they expect the name "Plain Old Text" to refer to the results that they will get (i.e., tags not evaluated) rather than the mechanics of the page generation. Just keep thinking about it in terms of the HTML source -- special characters like angle brackets and ampersands will have the same meaning as if you were just to type everything into a text file "mycomment.html" (inside of the "<HTML><BODY>
</EXPLANATION>
David Gould
Re:Hehhehe (Score:2)
into your post, you need to actually type it like this:
Re:Shudder (Score:1)
Okay, what happens then?
To get people to donate money to your site, you have to a) convince them that they want your site to keep existing, and b) that they need the money to continue existing.
A) happening is good for me, no matter why they're making the site, since the only real reason they can do it is by making a site that's useful or entertaining.
B) is a deterrant to coprorations who need to seem professional and want to keep their stock price high.
yuk yuk (Score:2)
Re:You misread Nielsen; here's what he really says (Score:1)
Download Junkbuster! (and thanks "looks like") :) (Score:1)
Jesus Christ (Score:4)
But once I killed them all, it was damn funny.
Re:All your Jesus Christ are belong to us! (Score:1)
I wonder.. (Score:4)
Couln't read the article... (Score:3)
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This is what banners are meant to be --- (Score:1)
Re:What's the alternative to banners? (Score:2)
I have a little web site, which was started about 6 years ago, that's mostly free resources for electronics projects, programming firmware, and similar technical subjects. For almost 4 years, it was hosted at a university web site, which cost me nothing, but 2 years ago they were no longer willing to host it, and I had to start paying. The site runs on it's own local-to-us server (not virtual hosted), so it's not exactly cheap to run, but I really need that local access to expend the creative energy to author reasonable web pages.
Well, over the years people have sent emails from time to time, asking where to get some of the parts and materials shown on the pages. A couple years ago, shortly before moving the site, a friend-of-a-friend agreed to offer a couple of parts from his site, which had other e-commerce going on. Their price was much too high and their service wasn't so good. They eventually sold the boards they had paid to get made, and I decided to set up shop myself.
Robin (girlfriend, partner, accountant) tells me that we've actually made a tiny profit, after having paid for the site hosting and all the other expenses. Of course, that tiny profit is based on working for free, but hey, I did that before.
Now I'll agree that this model can't work for a lot of sites, like news sites, but it is sort-of working for us. The point is that banner adds are not the only way. My site has never carried a banner ad, and probably never will. Maybe someday we'll even make enough money that I can work on producing new material full time instead of just doing it on-the-side. As it is, I'm pretty damn excited that it's managing to cover the expenses, which I had been paying out-of-pocket !!
If you're interested in the site, here's a link [pjrc.com].
Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:1)
Site design (Score:4)
K5 (Score:4)
A little test. (Score:5)
Re:Send them into the ether. (Score:1)
I would guess that they don't go to Digital Hell because they never existed in the first place. Would you send them there if they did?
Banner Ads Now have Banner Ads! Yow! (Score:4)
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The ultimate destination of banner ads I receive.. (Score:1)
Re:A little test. (Score:2)
There were 2 banners about credit card debt.
Careerbuilder.com
Wall Street Journal.
Something about weight loss.
Thats all I can remember.
-Restil
Re:Heh, darn junk buster (Score:1)
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Don't click? They don't care. (Score:1)
Scratch-o-Matic
Net Ads Still Better Than Radio,TV and Print Ads (Score:3)
On television and radio you have no choice but to watch ads, banners can be easily filtered or ignored.
A small 450x60 banner isn't that big of deal, as long as it doesn't spawn endless windows. We should be thankful that is all they are and try to keep them that size.
=-=-=-=-=
You can break them up!!! (Score:1)
Re:I wonder.. (Score:1)
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PointlessGames.com -- Go waste some time.
MassMOG.com -- Visit the site; Use the word.
Re:Site design (Score:2)
Makes you wonder how they figured that was more usable, because its not.
Why ads are unnecessary (Score:5)
Submit your site to the appropriate search engines and directories, so that when someone is looking for games, they find you.
Yep, it's true: The Internet is interactive, and people have started using it to search for things. There's no longer any reason to "push" in a media when people are able to "pull" whenever they need to. Couldn't do that with newspaper, magazines, TV, or radio. Can with Internet.
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Re:Why is this on Slashdot? AMEN (Score:1)
Re:A little test. (Score:1)
Some job site
Some platimum credit card
Some nonprofit that did something about credit improvement
See, I remembered a bit...
Don't get it (Score:2)
As for ad banners, I just meditated for 30 days at the W3C temple of semantic purity, and succeeded in training my optic nerves to block them before reaching my conscious mind. You could put a dozen banners on a page, and I wouldn't even notice!
Re:Alt attribute for banner ads (Score:2)
What's the point of putting alt text if it's meaningless to people who don't use images?
well, because only a fraction of 1% of the general surfing population surfs without images (or with text-only browsers). additionally, those that do surf without images are probably the type that don't click-through to too many advertisments anyhow. that "ALT" attribute is much better spent teaching those who use, say, IE (the majority of the surfing population), how to "follow" the advertisement (hence "Click to learn more...").
makes sense to me!
- j
What's the deal ? (Score:1)
Need to write some filter to recognise satirical pages though...
tandr
Re:Site design (Score:1)
(1)In most cases has all the parts of an article
(2)Less pics=>loads faster
(3)If you`re lucky, it`s ad-free
(4)It`s easier on your eyes
(5)It prints better too
Granted, not all sites got it, but if youn do see it in a multi-part story you`re interested in, you`re in luck.
Re:But seriously folks ... (Score:2)
I write code for an embedded device that requires source in the EPROMs after a download -- you can extract the program. No problemo, I wrote a filter that removes all comments and whitespace, uppercases everything, and while leaving known language keywords intact replaces all the variable, subroutine, and function names with random 4-digit hexadecimal numbers in the range A000-FFFF.
Seems like it would be child's play (for one who knows the right hooks) to insert such a beast into any Java to turn ONCLOSE into ONHELLFREEZESOVER.
Re:Site design (Score:1)
And yet, I'm the troll here.
Sure thing, buddy.
Re:A little test. (Score:1)
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Re:Hehhehe (Score:2)
Flash Ads (Score:1)
Absolutely. My bank now sports ads that require the latest version of Flash. As I don't have it installed on my machine, I get to see a nice annoying "this page requires you download a plugin" dialog every time I go there. And this is a company I'm actually doing real business with!
Re:Site design (Score:2)
Sometimes I wish
-j
Re:But seriously folks ... (Score:1)
that is all.
itachi
Re:What's the alternative to banners? (Score:1)
Seriously, though... (Score:2)
For better or worse, most websites are unwilling to operate permenantly at a loss, and thus seek to earn money. Unless the site is a retailer or requires paid registration, the most practical way to accomplish this is banner ads. Unfortunately, no one clicks these ads, forcing sites to deploy ever larger and more intrusive banners.
The simple solution is for the community to organize an effort to click banner ads, particularly the more bland ones. Once sites notice this trend, they will realize that they can earn revenue by deploying small ads, and we will no longer have to put up with blinking neon monstrosities.
Disable your filters... (Score:2)
Now I'm ROFL
Even better.. (Score:4)
Banners Massively Clicked; Advertisers Slashdotted (Score:2)
Mountain View, CA - A number of low-traffic commercial sites that had been attempting to draw users to their sites were suddenly awash in unexpected hits this Friday, bringing them to a grinding halt. The apparent source of this traffic surge was a reference to a banner-laden page on Slashdot [slashdot.org], known for bringing down sites simply by posting links to them.
A member of the Slashdot staff, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that "Banners are annoying, it's a good thing those advertisers went down!" This may also be the first time a second-order Slashdot effect has brought down a web server. The advertisers could not be reached for comment, since no e-mail addresses could be obtained from the crushed Web servers.
Re:Shudder (Score:2)
I see banner ads as an assault on my psyche, trying to extract from me things ($$$) which I want to keep.
IF banner ads work, then I am paying to look at free sites one way or another (TANSTAAFL [science.uva.nl], and all that). I would rather be subjected to an earnest plea to support the site than I would subject myself to the creations of people whose very job is to subtly manipulate my psyche in the favor of their company.
A number of the online [penny-arcade.com] comics [goats.com] I frequently read have shifted in the direction of a PBS model - if you like it, send us a few bucks. If we get enough bucks we'll run some kind of special feature (not too unlike the Street Performer Protocol [counterpane.com]). It is not anywhere near as obtrusive as your example - one of the reasons at least Penny-Arcade shifted to this model is that ad banners were too obtrusive and disruped their site. (their network kept sneaking popups in, plus just vibrating windows and stuff)
Re:But seriously folks ... (Score:2)
Of course, you could always hit Ctrl-Alt-Esc (basically xkill) and click the app to make it disappear without having a popup.
How many of you remember them /now/? (Score:3)
The difference between conscious and unconscious memory is essential to the advertiser's trade.
They don't want to you to think about the ad after you've left it, they want you to recognize the brand, and associate certain qualities with it.
How many things do you associate with Coca-Cola? Pepsi? Ford trucks? You don't remember every ad, but they all affected your gut feeling toward these brands. Advertising is mind pollution. You are dumber for having seen it.
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More Banner Ad humor (Score:2)
Banner Ads Now Themselves Have Banner Ads
http://segfault.org/story.phtml?mode=2&id=3aa0088a -087aad20 [segfault.org]
Re: (Score:2)